Capturing the vanishing point: Subjective experiences and cultural value

Abstract

This article is prompted by the observation that many accounts of the value of the arts and culture have failed to engage first-order, empirical data and to take full account of the experiences of those directly involved in cultural activities and practices. This neglect is the result of a complex path dependency. The more obvious explanation is that the current situation is caused by too much humanism in the field of cultural studies, that is, the tendency to think of cultural value as an “‘ineffable’ human moment which somehow lies outside this purview of representational method” (Law, J., Rupert, E., & Savage, M. [2011]. The double social life of methods. Milton Keynes: CRESC). This may well be true in some cases but it is not the main reason why empirical and experiential data have been lacking. The absence of the phenomenological dimension is, to the contrary, best explained by not enough humanism in cultural studies. The reluctance to embrace the first-person perspective was motivated by an anxiety that this would make cultural theorists and sociologists complicit with the “dubious” theories of subjecthood originating in idealism. The default outcome of this has been the preponderance of structuralism in cultural studies which led to anti-empiricism and “theoretical heavy breathing” (Thompson, E. P. [1995]. The poverty of theory: Or an orryery of errors. London: Merlin Press). I argue that to overcome the current impasse, cultural theorists and the theorists of cultural value specifically must revisit this self-incurred suspicion of first-order constructs and address their unease with the category of experience by actively engaging first-person data. In short, the remedy I prescribe is to embrace elements of empirical, phenomenological sociology as part of the methodological framework. Looking at three projects funded by the AHRC Cultural Value Project, I show how this can be practically achieved. I conclude with some reflections on how the considerations presented here might have broader implications for the future research into cultural value, sociological inquiry and cultural policy.

Keywords:

• cultural value
• experience
• subjectivity
• first-order constructs
• phenomenology
• methodology

Notes

1 In this article I showcase some imaginative approaches which use visual, linguistic and somatic-register techniques.

2 It is for different but not unrelated reasons that cultural experiences have not been properly accounted for in the mainstream academic discussion and in cultural policy debates. In this article I will concern myself with the former, that is, the academic discourse of cultural value, but I will sketch some possible implications for policy discourse at the end.

3 The notions of subject and experience are discursively complicated in Hall's account but this claim is accurate even when it comes to the theorists who, according to Hall, defend the role of experience in cultural studies, for example, Williams and Thompson. The way these theorists define experience brings their accounts perilously close to structuralism (see Hall, 1980).

4 Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/phenomenology/.

5 In order to achieve this traditional phenomenology employs the procedure of bracketing, whose aim it to remove the natural presuppositions about the existence of the external world. In practice this may mean examining phenomena as ‘uncanny’ in everyday situations. See http://sociology.about.com/od/Research/a/Ethnomethodology.htm.

6 For instance, first-person, experiential data have been used in the evaluation of cultural initiatives in the criminal justice system but some evaluations have been critiqued for lacking rigour. See http://www.artsevidence.org.uk/.

7 Retrieved from http://culturalvalueinitiative.org/2014/01/15/sociology-art-estranged-bedfellows-patrycja-kaszynska/.

8 Retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09548963.2014.897453.

9 Retrieved from http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funded-Research/Funded-themes-and-programmes/Cultural-Value-Project/Current-and-Past-Research-Activities/Pages/default.aspx.

10 Retrieved from http://www.ahrc.ac.uk/Funded-Research/Funded-themes-and-programmes/Cultural-Value-Project/Documents/Cultural_Value_Project.pdf.

11 Retrieved from http://www.sunderland.ac.uk/research/areasofresearch/creativeandculturalpracticesbeacon/projects/asomaticethnographyofgrandgestures/.

12 Retrieved from http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/10961/.

13 Retrieved from https://www.liv.ac.uk/media/livacuk/instituteofpsychology/deptpsychologicalsciences/AHRC_Cultural_Value_Report.pdf.